Sapient Shares Popped: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of technology consulting firm Sapient (Nasdaq: SAPE) rose as much as 16% in early trading after reporting first-quarter financial results that easily beat estimates.

So what: Revenue rose 30% to $249.9 million while profit nearly doubled to $0.09 per share. Analysts had been expecting $231.1 million and $0.07 a share, respectively.

Now what: Management also guided above expectations. Second-quarter services revenue should come in between $249 million and $257 million, comfortably above Wall Street's $244 million target. The message? Technology buyers are back, and they're turning to experts to help them glean value from new hardware and software purchases. Keep an eye on this stock, Fool. Rising IT spending could lead to a longer-term rally in the shares of this five-star stock and its service-delivery peers, including IBM (NYSE: IBM) , Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) , and CSC (NYSE: CSC) .

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